


Right Way

by scamvnder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Endgame Spoilers!, I'm still bitter about certain parts of endgame!, so here's something incredibly self indulgent and canon divergent!, sorry y'all :(((, very angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 00:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scamvnder/pseuds/scamvnder
Summary: Request: "honey, there is no right way" with Steve Rogers??-taken from the Hozier title generatorAlso, this has somehow become the 'how many semicolons and commas can Alyssa use' challenge asdfghkjListened to 'No Plan' by Hozier while writing this, but the prompt is based off his song 'Someone New'Follow me on Tumblr @donnvdonowitz! Everything is posted there first :)





	Right Way

It didn’t feel right. None of this did.

You shouldn’t resent that people are celebrating; it’s a goddamn miracle any of you are still here, especially Tony. After he had taken the gauntlet from Thanos and snapped his fingers, life should have returned to some normalcy; loved ones were returned to their families, entire species came back from extinction, and the world began to rebuild itself after five years of desolation and chaos.

Except that nothing felt normal to you anymore.

After the first snap, the weight of your loss seemed insurmountable. The planet was plunged into ruin, governments collapsed, and the survivors were left to grieve and try to continue living in a world where half of everything no longer existed. All because you had failed. Steve, for all the shit he’s been through in his life, tried to see an existence past this, but you could tell he never really let go. How could he? He had failed too, and lost nearly everyone close to him because of it: Bucky, Sam, T’Challa, not to mention the others on the team like Peter and Wanda. He was burdened by the same weight, too.

You went to one of his meetings, listened to everyone talk about who was dusted. Steve never pushed you to share, but you could tell that he hoped you would. He had mentioned Sam, when he was first throwing around the idea of creating a support group for survivors of the snap; said something about how his bed felt too soft when he first woke up from the ice and that everyone must feel that way now. You thought that maybe he was trying to keep his friend alive, or at least a part of him, by helping others with their PTSD. But even when trying to move forward, you were both stuck in the past. It turns out that there’s no guidebook or set of instructions on how to deal with half of the universe disappearing and then being brought back.

Sam stands by the fireplace next to Bucky, pulling his leg about something. You watch as the dark haired man rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his drink, clearly trying to hide his smile behind the glass in his hand. They look happy; they should be happy. They get to be after everything they’ve been through, and so does everyone else except, you felt, for you.

There are plenty of others that didn’t return when everything was reversed.

Vision, Gamora, Loki, Heimdall. Even though you didn’t know most of them personally, it didn’t seem right that they didn’t get to come back, too. That their deaths stayed permanent; that some power hungry asshole from outer space got to choose who lived or died.

“Come outside with me?”

Steve’s voice shakes you out of your thoughts and you blink a few times before steadying your gaze on him. It’s an invitation, not a request, and you know that if you decline he won’t force your hand. He’s been watching you for most of the night, catching the tense smiles and fake laughter. He knows better; has seen you when you think you’re alone; notices the discontented undercurrent in everything you do. He wants to help you feel better, but the only way he can do that is if you let him.

Wordlessly, you follow him onto the porch. It’s quiet save for the birds and the muffled noises of the party in the background. You missed those sounds; the sounds of life, but still you struggle trying to deal with being relieved and mourning at the same time.

Neither of you say anything for a few minutes. The silence is always comfortable with Steve, but there’s a lot he’s holding back, a lot he’s keeping himself from saying because he wants you to make the first move. You know that healing doesn’t start until you decide to put in the effort, but how can you explain to him that you don’t know where to start?

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” He finally speaks up, leveling you with an expression that’s filled with so much worry it makes your chest tighten. Never in your time with Steve have you found it difficult to say how you’re feeling until now. All you can do is stare at him, trying to come up with the words, until he looks down at his feet with a heavy sigh and pushes his fingers through his hair. It’s only a matter of time now until he’ll get tired of being disappointed by you.

“I don’t know what to say…” You offer lamely, the lump growing in your throat preventing you from speaking above more than a whisper. He looks to you again and the same concerned expression is still there, this time mixed with sympathy. He understands all too well the need to shut down, to become a brick wall and ignore the problem until it’s internalized. He rarely cries. He knows that it has almost everything to do with the trauma he’s been through, and the expectations of him now. What would the people think if they saw Steve Rogers, Captain America, leader of the Avengers and war hero, having a breakdown? He’s always been a beacon of hope for people. To see that hope diminished by his grief would be unsettling, but there’s a danger in keeping up a front. It’s left him feeling isolated, angry, defensive…and he won’t let you follow in his footsteps.

“People are still dead, Steve…I just-why are we the ones who get to celebrate? How the hell am I supposed to feel?”

Survivor’s guilt. You’ve been hearing that term a lot lately, and you know that’s what you’re experiencing. You try not to think about how many died when pilots, or surgeons, or even people just driving their cars were suddenly turned to ash. The lives lost when they lost control of their planes and vehicles, and stopped operating mid surgery is unimaginable, even without the scenarios you haven’t thought of yet.

“I don’t know,” he admits because he can’t understand it any better than you can. If Steve’s learned anything from losing his best friend twice, from being frozen in ice and waking up seventy years later and discovering that everything he sacrificed was for nothing, is that sometimes shitty things happen that he has no control over, and that feeling responsible for it only adds guilt to his heart ache. Even so, having to come to terms that even though Thanos was defeated, some people didn’t make it is difficult. You just have to let it hurt.

“There’s no right way to feel,” he starts again, pausing to press his lips against the top of your head. “We just have to keep going.”

Steve is right. All any of you can do to honor the fallen is keep living, keep trying to create a safer world so that something this catastrophic doesn’t happen again.

“Together?” You murmur, feeling more assured than you have in years.

“Together.”


End file.
